Epilogue
by Ditey
Summary: It'll only happen once. Five voices, one truth. "Colin is dead."


Epilogue.  
  
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It'll only happen once.  
  
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**  
  
Colin Hart is dead.  
  
You know, when operating, it's so easy to lose reality. It's like--all that there ever was were these series of veins, and gushes of red, and your scalpel to manuever through it all. Submersion. Time is irrelevant and all the space there is, is in your hands. Delicately folding through muscle.  
  
Colin's operation wasn't like that at all. From the moment I put on the gloves, I was telling myself the routine, reiterating it in my mind, as if I would forget a step. Standing in front of him, the first incision of the knife- instructions. Not too deep--softer. Not that one..don't disturb the others--carefully guide it, don't break it.  
  
Usually, it's like all there is, is that world inside the brain, the web and layers. But I found my eyes straying from the focus of the operation, grazing down to where Colin's eyes would be. HIs arms, laying on his chest peacefully. Like his fate had already been decided, and all he needed was a bunch of flowers in hhis hands and a mohagany casket.  
  
I held my breath, knowing that one tremble of my hand, one slight movement, could end his life. And the lives of so many others. One twitch--  
  
Cut. Irreplacable. A small rivulet of blood tugged at the scalpel, as I tried to see through its stream to repair the part. Knife too deep, gash too large.   
  
At a point like this, I usually turn to the nurse next to me, ask for another tool in a vary blase manner, and block of the cut the best I could, even if it meant a mental or physical handicap, even if the patient would be breathing through a tube for the rest of his life.  
  
But still, I could feel myself back away for a moment. Look down to Colin's still form, his head tilted back, limp. Motionless.   
  
Everything around me was saying, 'bypass.' Saying, 'to hell with his wishes. This boy deserves to live.'  
  
But I could feel myself open my mouth and say, 'Prepare to close.'  
  
I might as well have said...  
  
*  
  
"Colin's dead."  
  
I just realized that, even if the phone call was half an hour ago. Even if I got it a day late.  
  
I really want to say 'I can't believe this is happening', 'I had no idea', 'how could this have happened?'  
  
I want to be like Mom when she calls and says, "Oh, Laynie, dear. It's about Colin."  
  
"I just don't know what happened," she says. I don't say anything. Somehow 'I told you so' is the worst thing I could possibly say.  
  
And yet, it's exactly what I want to say.  
  
Her voice is so much higher than normal, and breaking every other word. It's giving way to feelings she doesn't want to answer to.   
  
She continues on and says, "Laynie, I had no idea..." and I know that she means it. She really had no idea.  
  
Is it horrible to feel like a huge weight has been lifted? I know it does, but that's how I feel, this very moment. How it felt to be relieved of the shock immediately following the accident. The waiting, anticipation of comatose Colin. The aloofness of being sent away, so your parents wouldn't have to deal with you, and you wouldn't cause more stress in their lives. The anxiousness when I heard, Colin was awake. The disappointment when I learned what 'awake' really was. The stress, the constant fear that through everyone's optimism, through all miracles--it was all going to end. Colin's luck would run out.  
  
"Laynie, I know it's so difficult to comprehend--"  
  
It really isn't. I knew it would happen. It was just a matter of when and where, and if I would be there to witness it.  
  
"And I'm sorry we didn't call you home sooner..."  
  
So I could watch him die, and the town's shattering in addition?  
  
"And I know it's going to take a while, but things will be back to normal. I mean--your father and I, we'll get through this. What I'm trying to say is---come home, Laynie. Please."  
  
At that moment, it's like going home is something I wish I will never have to do.  
  
*  
  
Colin's dead.  
  
  
  
I can feel it. Colin's dead and it's all I can think about. Colin's dead and I killed him.  
  
Dad's telling me, "it wasn't your fault. You can't allow yourself to think that."   
  
I can tell myself it's all an accident, but there's always a part of me that retorts, 'if you hadn't taken those sips, if you hadn't allowed yourself to drive, if you had turned a little sooner, a little slower, if you hadn't switched gears or played with the radio--'  
  
Dad says no one blames me. If Amy would know--oh, God, if Amy were to know, I'd be receiving the Doctor Brown treatment. She'd hate me. She'd want to kill me. She'd yell, 'it should have been you!'  
  
And I'd be inclined to agree.  
  
I haven't even asked Dad what Colin would think. Dad would probably say, 'he'd think nothing of it.' Damn right, he won't. Since he's dead. Since I killed him.  
  
You know, when I was little, I used to love reading these ghost stories. About how people who wrongfully died would become ghosts, and haunt those that killed them, until they went crazy, and confessed their crimes, and committed suicide.  
  
I'm starting to wonder if Colin would do that to me.  
  
The old Colin would probably just block all my basketball shots, or make me trip all of a sudden. I don't know about the other one. Colin the Second. Maye he's replay that night, the night he lost it. The night his fist met my eye.  
  
Maybe the ghost isn't either Colin. Maybe when Colin died, he became another Colin. Colin the Third.   
  
I tried to imagine what Colin the Third might be like, but I really couldn't.   
  
Everytime I closed my eyes, I saw Colin, staring at me, *hating* me. Taut jaw, ominous eyes, like he was never going to let me forget when I had done.  
  
But when I opened my eyes, casting Colin away from my thoughts, I once again had to grip with the fact that he was gone forever. Dead. Lost.  
  
I spent last night alternating from opening and closing my eyes. I couldn't decide which was worse.  
  
*  
  
Colin's dead. Colin's dead and it's all Doctor Brown's fault.  
  
It's his fault I have to go through a box of photographs, ticket stubs, birthday cards. It's his fault that instead of Colin next to me to laugh about all those memories, I'm the only one still there to cry about them.   
  
The computer is still on the desk. I don't want to touch it. I don't want to hear any justifications of that letter. Dr. Brown is a doctor. Not an ethicist. He's not Colin. He's not the one to make those decisions.  
  
Everyone's trying to make excuses. Everyone's lying. Colin's dead. The least I deserve is the truth.  
  
You know, I really don't care if Colin went back into a coma. As long as he was here. As long as I could visit on the weekends, sit by his bed, watch his chest rise and fall, the faint fluttering of his eyelashes.  
  
It doesn't matter if he could talk back. Or hear me. Or ever get up from that bed again.  
  
If only he was here.  
  
It feels so weird to be in his room. When he's not in it. There are posters on the walls, a stack of CDs in the corner, a hamper with still dirty clothes and textbooks on the desk. I've spent all afternoon rummaging through the piles. Finding his perfect attendance certificates in folders, some homework assignments never turned in, and a stash of candy bars under his bed.  
  
And then there's his closet.  
  
I go in there, and it's like I never even knew Colin.  
  
The walls are painted black. Abstract red lines cut through it. Splashes of paint, dried in a perpetual drip. It's fury. It's frustration.  
  
Newer lines form from it. Lines form shapes. Shapes form pictures. In cooler colors, blue. Icy. Refreshing. I can make out the shape of purplish mountains, a lake, two figures skating, footprints in snow.   
  
On one side, it's blood. On the other, it's rain.  
  
I spend fifteen minutes just studying the drawings. I trace my finger along the lines, the lines of paint Colin once crowded into this closet to paint.  
  
Suddenly, I feel like maybe I have to re-examine it all. It contradicts everything. It's like I never knew Colin. No one knew Colin.  
  
He doesn't need words to reply. He doesn't need to be alive to impact.   
  
I don't know what it was about that mural. That painting. Those colors. I don't know why they seemed to follow me no matter where I turned. I don't know why it struck me as deep as it did.  
  
What I do know is Colin's dead.  
  
But maybe that's what he wanted.  
  
*  
  
Colin's dead.  
  
This I know. The words, "I'm sorry," just came out of my dad's mouth and I just wish more than anything else, I could go back five seconds in time.  
  
Colin's still dead.  
  
The day after is sunny and warm and not at all what it should be. When I wake up, it should be gloomy, foggy and cold. Cold.  
  
Amy's working on the memorial. I can't even pass his house. I walk the long route.   
  
The third day, I'm put in an auditorium and am forced to listen person after person spout their memories of Colin.   
  
Colin the First, that is.  
  
He's a pro football player, says one. A brilliant student, says his chemistry teacher. He always smiled at me in the halls, remarks a short kid with messy hair.   
  
No one ever talks about the guy who could recall the lyrics of every Frank Sinatra song, or learned to ride a bicycle in two days, or would prank call Pizza Huts and order seventeen pineapple pizzas delivered to the awful calculus teacher.   
  
I try to pay attention but find my thoughts wandering elsewhere.  
  
The fourth day is a Saturday, and everyone is gone to the water theme park in their best bathing suits. There is laughing and teasing and much fun to be had by people that just want to forget about a sixteen year old young man dead from a brain surgery.  
  
The day after, the town is in a mad-rush for back-to-school shopping. Colin's old news.  
  
It seems like it shouldn't go on. Life, I mean. Like maybe things are just cut short, the moment 'I'm sorry' is uttered. There's a description of Colin's parents' face, the way Amy sucks a deep breathe of air, and I look down into my hands, and the words, 'the end' are scrolled in calligraphy at the end of the page.  
  
There shouldn't be an epilogue.   
  
There shouldn't be anything after, any time for anyone to forget. I don't want to imagine a world where there's no Colin.  
  
I want this to be the last page of a tragedy.  
  
*  
  
I mourn for those that were never real  
  
But never had a chance to prove their worth... 


End file.
